However, custom has taken off the edge of it since; namely, that they who did thus contract matrimony should forfeit their indentures, that is to say, should lose the benefit of their whole service, and not be made free.

What portion of himself or herself any one complicated physical and psychological human being really and truly 'conveys' to another by means of the simple contract known as the "plighted troth" or that of a larger deed called the called the "solemnization of matrimony", is a riddle difficult of solution; and as to how much one may claim on the strength of one or other of these indentures, that is a more difficult problem still.